TUI Blue Gardens

Stayed for a week early September and overall enjoyed our holiday. All staff throughout the hotel were very pleasant and helpful throughout our stay...a big thank you to reception for finding my hoodie that i didn't know i had 'lost' until packing to come home!! Zamir the tui rep was wonderful with hints and tips especially when we hired a car. Room great and large. Restaurant was nice and food plentiful. Lunchtime menu could be better in both quality and value for money if you spend all your time by pool. Yes the hotel is on a hill but we knew that before we booked - (research), so not a problem but can understand it might affect others.The building work didn't bother us at all and yes we did use pool & the rooftop facilities, but some people have to moan about something. Our only niggle was no balcony for sitting out on floor 7 but it didn't spoil our wonderful break nor would stop us staying here again. Hope to return very soon.

We stayed at the hotel for a week, the hotel was beautiful exceptionally clean. Excellent staff and service. The rooms are large with extremely large bed. The food was excellent with lots of choice. Pool area very quiet except for building work next door, this didn't bother us but quite a lot of people moaning. The hotel is on a hill but we quite like this, felt like doing a workout each day!

This was our first time to Madeira.
We chose to stay at this hotel and was pleasantly surprised how well the hotel was run. The whole of the staff were fantastic, very helpful and professional. The hotel was very clean throughout. The food in the restaurant was plentiful and of a good standard with enough for all appetites, we were more than happy with the choice both and breakfast and at dinner, the service in the restaurant was spot on with all that we had serve us very professional and friendly, they made feel very welcome as all the staff did. The entertainment team were brilliant and tried exceptionally hard to provide a varied type of entertainment for all differing types of people.
Ignore the tales about the building work next door it really is not as bad as people make out, just go and enjoy a lovely experience and super relaxing holiday.

We recently stayed at Savoy Gardens on our first holiday alone without the family around us. On arrival our room wasnt ready but were more than happy to relax by the pool with a drink untill it was...which wasnt to long and they came and told us straight away. Our room was a lovely size and we had opted for a sea view. It was clean with plenty of storage and power points. Clean towels were provided for use around the pool which we thought was excellent as I could get yet more holiday clothes packed into my case. Shower gel and bottled water was also provided daily which was just a lovely little extra touch. The staff were all very polite and helpfully and always found time to chat and make you feel relaxed. We just loved the fact that after our 10 day stay we had managed to teach Anja how to greet us with a yorkshire welcome ...we loved our chats with her throughout our stay...she was a star and we enjoyed her local knowledge of the area. The food was really enjoyable and there was an excellent choice every evening even for my husband who is quiet fussy. The breakfast was stocked with a choice of just about everything and lovely fresh local fruit. The pool area could get a little busy but we managed to escape to the roof top terrace most days where you could take your pick of sun lounges even 3 beautiful canopy beds plus there was also a small well stocked fridge up there that you could just add on to your bill. Yes there was building work going on next door but in all honesty we never felt it to be a problem..the noise was hardly noticeable and kept to a minimum and there was never any dust. This hotel really did leave us with fantastic memories and we wouldn't hesitate to recommend and we are so proud to have left a little bit of Yorkshire Wata in Maderia...keep up the accent Anja

The hotel is kept clean, when we arrived our room was ready but our friends room was not, so they were told it would be ready by 2pm, however it was not. Pool area is kept clean. If you stay here, the hotel has a NO cash policy, which means you pay for everything at the end of the week. However if you pay 150 euros at reception within 24 hrs of arriving, it acts as credit, and they give you 25 euros as well, so your bill at the end of the week is not so much. The food does get a bit repetitive. If you down to the Lido, there are some nice places to have a drink and eat, but get a taxi back up the hill its about 5 euros. There is building work next door but it is not an issue, we had a sea view and you cannot see it. The Thompson rep is the best we have had, any questions just ask, but please go to his welcome meeting it is good. Our room was above reception on the 2nd floor, however the a/c fans are in front of reception, so we had some noise from the fans. If at night you are led in bed and you can hear a ticking noise, check your room phone is on the hook, our phone was placed at an angle twice by the room cleaner, who was not the best, her name was Rita.

I would like to provide and informative review free of as much personal opinion as possible. We stayed on the 6th floor in room 609 sea view room, from the 6th of August for 12 days. The average age group we found was between 35 – 55 years old.

Hotel Room:-
• Very nice and very large room and exceptionally clean and well kept.
• Balcony large enough for small table & 2 chairs and 2 people to stand on. Size
approx. 1 x 1.5 meters
• Very large King size bed (very soft and combatable extra pillows in wardrobe if
needed)
• 12” tv but limited number of English channels. (possibly 5 channels excluding
news)
• Small glass table and 2 chairs also in room.
• Very very large built in wardrobes and draws (wardrobes are quite old but very
functional)
• 7 plug sockets in the room 6 plugs used by electric devices in the room including
lights.
• Electronic safe ready for pin to be set.
• Room fitted with aircon with 3 settings and does a very good job to bring room
temperature down.
• Hotel room has wi-fi which I found to very very good and never had an issue with.
• Very good black out curtains covering windows.
• Coffee and tea and milk replenished everyday as need and we also had a
number of large glass bottles of water provided.
• Small but good size fridge in room which holds 1.5liter bottle of cola very well as
well as a number of smaller bottles. Milk tray in fridge door was broken though.
• Room always made up by 2pm each day sometimes by 10am. Hotel staff do
amazing job of cleaning the room every day. Never had issues needing new
towels, or toilet roll. Room comes with 2 beach towels as well, again no issue
getting new towels replaced if needed.
• Never heard any sound from buildings works outside. You do hear motorbikes a
lot but nothing to cause any issue or problems sleeping. Motorbikes quite loud
with window or doors open to outside though.

Bathroom:-
• Amazing bathroom and clearly a lot of money has been spent modernizing this
area.
• Lots of room around the sink.
• Medium size heated towel rail and also has pull out washing line over bath to dry
cloths. Heated towel rail was very good and worked very well for the size.
• Hair dry supplied but not as powerfull as a personal hairdryer but does work
adequately. This also has the standard sockets for a shaving device to be
plugged in.
• Shower is ok but does swings from hot too cold while showering but nothing that
really bothered me.
• Fresh cleaning products provided when needed (soap, hair net etc)
• Shower / bath has wall mounted shower gel proved in lemon and was always full
and was great to use so I didn’t need to bring anything at all.

Hotel:-
• This hotel is kept exceptionally clean and very well kept 24/7.
• Very large and very nice main entrance.
• Sofas in main area where very nice and lots of very nice local art work all over
the hotel.
• We never used the hotel inside bar so I can’t comment on this but it did look great
and welcoming.
• Again the hotel seems very modern.

Main restaurant:-
• Never had a single issue finding a table morning or evening.
• Lots of different foods to choose from
• Food presentation was utterly fantastic
• Food always tasted amazing and full of flavour
• Great selection of desserts to choose from.
• Breakfast was the same each day but still very very good in all areas.
• Staff cleared our plates before we sat down again every time.
• Very lovely staff always happy and willing to help and provide drinks when needed.

Pool area & Pool
• Pool is 25 meters long and goes to 1.7 meters deep.
• The pool is not heated but after a few moments is very pleasant to swim in. (I
spent 2+ hours in it for over 5 days with no issue at all)
• Pool side is very well kept and very clean.
• Lots of sunbeds and never really had a problem ever getting a sunbed while
there for 12 days.
• Lots of small table and chairs near pool side for eating lunches or drinking.
• Soft music playing all day around the pool which is very nice.
• Building work next door is no issue at all. It was so quite on two separate days I
had to physically go and look to see if the building work was going on they were
so quite. There can be the odd few minutes here or there where it might be a bit
loud from an angel grinder but really really not a issue to me or my partner
• Service for drinks was a huge let down and I will detail this more at the end.

Facilities and entertainment:-
• Mini golf is unusable as most of the course as fallen to disarray.
• Driving rang works but there are no driving clubs, basically only putting clubs.
• Dart board was almost fallen to bits and was removed a few days after we got
there, so no dart board.
• French bowels are good, but didn’t use large chess or drafts which both seemed
fine.
• Pc is running on Window 95 I think and is very very slow and out of date, I was
unable to do anything with it as the internet hardly worked due to such slow
speed.
• Pool / snooker table doesn’t work very well as the balls are too big for the table
and pockets are only fractionally bigger than the balls so very hard to pot
anything.
• Lots of board games and lots of books which you can help yourself too.
• Large tv in games room works but never used it.
• The evening entertainment which we saw was always great and the local where
very good and we really enjoyed them.

Location and scenery
• The area around the hotel at night is breathtakingly beautiful.
• A lot of hotels near and around this one but still has a lot of open space around it.
• Hotel is up quite a step hill and could be an issue for some. (I’m 38 and I found it
a little tough on occasion)
• Easy walk down hill to the town and old town and takes between 10 – 20
minutes’ walk.
• There’s a shop which sells most of what you want 5 minutes away.

Excursions:-
• The one excursion you have to do if any is “the living sea” this was amazing in every way. The family that run and work on this where amazing and lovely people, amazing service, amazing home cooked food, great boat and swimming in the sea was great.

• The walks would be the next big thing to do and the lavada walks where great and mostly in the shade for the half day walks.

• The cable car ride up to the gardens and then the sledge was an amazing experience. The cable car was great with amazing views, the gardens where incredible and if you like taking photo’s you will need lots of space on your memory card for this. Please note when we tried to go on the sledge but the que on this occasion was very long and added 1 – 2 hours to the excursion. (This might not be a normal occurrence but we attended the same time as 4 other TUI trips doing the same thing)

• Taxi from the town to the hotel cost about 6 euro’s but you must make sure the meter is on or you might face a far created by the driver (this didn’t happen to us but we were strongly warned)

Staff:-
• The staff on reception where nice but their English wasn’t amazing but not an
issue.
• The hotel roof bar staff where nice but if you don’t sit in the main section on an
evening and sit in the smoking section it’s very very hard to get service.
• The biggest let down for the whole hotel was the service for drinks or food from pool side, this was a huge let down. Bar staff would rather chat with each other than serve customers. Took on average 10 – 15 minutes to put an order in when waiting for them to come over. Food took a very very long time to come out and getting the receipt for the meal / drink after the meal could take up to 30 minutes, one occasion it took nearly 2 hours to have a lunch due to the poor service. After getting feed up of waiting to order and approach the staff your told to sit down and they will be over, unfortunately you’ve waited so long to be served at your table you end up having to go to the bar to get some sort of service. the demands on the pool bar staff where not high at all almost to the point they had no customers and no one to serve yet still no effort at any point to serve people clearly sat down waiting to order.

TIPS:-
Average cost for a meal at lunch for two is 30 euros.
The hotel has a no cash policy and you can settle your balance daily or whenever you like. The hotel offers a deal where if you buy 150 Euros you will get 172.50 euros credited to your account. This is very good and you can take this option once a week. We did this and used it twice, if we decided to have a romantic meal in the smaller restaurant which cost 50 euros and include champagne and choice of wine. For the whole holiday including eating out a few times for lunch we spent 348 Euros.

We have just spent 7 days here and could not have wished for a better holiday.
The hotel is wonderful although if you are not physically fit this is not for you.
The location is up a steep hill but the compensation is that the views are to die for.
The rooms are a large size with the beds being King size and extremely comfortable for a good night’s sleep.
On arrival we were greeted with a drink and an apology that the rooms would not be ready until 2 o’clock. To pass the time we had lunch by the side of the pool.
The pool area is compact, so if you want to continually move around to chase the sun, everyone else has to.
The alternative is the Rooftop on the 7th floor. Here there are sun beds and this is a quieter area to sunbathe along with a hot tub.
This are is also used for the Happy Hour from 6 until 8 o’clock with 30% off the drinks during this period.
Dinner is between 6.30 and 9.30 with a good selection of food.
The staff are excellent being both friendly whilst being efficient.
We loved the stay here and would highly recommend.
This is a hotel that we will be happy to come back to.

Enjoyed an 11 night stay here and enjoyed it very much. The staff are very welcoming. A varied selection of breakfast is available. The roof terrace is great by day with jacuzzi available & ample beds are available poolside. The roof terrace doubled up as a bar in the evening. You can walk to old funchal town but a bus is available outside hotel. If you walk towards the lido area and beyond you come to a tunnel where you can hear/see the waves crashing into caverns, through the tunnel is a pepple beach, take suitable footwear if you want to dip in the ocean.

Just returned from a week at the Savoy Gardens and were more than happy. Very clean, polite staff, and good choice of food for both breakfast and dinner. Didn’t really feel bothered by the building work next door, it’s really not that loud. It is at the top of a few steep roads but we found it ok. Stop for a drink at the Hole in One or The Whitehouse (good for football if needed) on your way back and you’ll be fine. We had a suite on the 7th floor and it was really big with a huge balcony and our own sun-beds. Worth the extra in case there are sun-bed reservers when you’re there. We had a few inconsiderates for the first few days, but then it was fine. There are signs up saying it’s not permitted but I guess some people just choose to ignore it so they get the same spot every day. Restaurant and bar staff very friendly, Tui reps also. It can be a little quiet round the pool, but it’s up to you if you chat and mix with others. This hotel is not for people who want to sit round the bar all day boozing, and Madeira is not for you if you want ‘Full English Breakfast’ or ‘Sunday Roast’ signs everywhere. Overall, a lovely holiday.

Fantastic hotel. Staff all very friendly and couldn't be more helpful. Tui staff exceptional as well, made us feel very welcome and had lots of advice on where and when to go. Food really good, drinks a little expensive but comparable to other bars, so not too bad. Room very nice, very clean and had everything you would need.

We had a mountain view room on the 6th floor which was absolutely perfect for us.
Large room, huge, comfortable bed, powerful, hot shower (at all times of the day) and small balcony to enjoy the view.
The staff at this hotel are lovely, all going above and beyond at all times to provide excellent service. Sometimes of an evening, the waiters were a little slow to get around the tables but that was our only issue which was relatively minor.
Others have commented about the noise from the construction of the hotel next door, but it is easy to block out the noise and I don't really know what guests want the hotel staff to do about this? Perhaps close for the duration of the construction work? It caused no problems for us whatever. (Staying at a hotel which is not adults-only would result in much more disturbance in my opinion).
The rooftop lounge is a great place to hang out of an evening or during the day, there are extra sun loungers here too, if the pool area is too crowded. The rooftop jacuzzi is a real luxury offering fantastic views over Funchal and the Atlantic Ocean.
The hotel has a cashless policy, so when you purchase drinks (quite reasonably priced), they are charged to your room and you settle the bill at the end, which worked well for us but is something to bear in mind.
Also, guests must wear trousers to dinner, no SHORTS.
Carlos, a bartender, was absolutely fantastic. Cracking jokes and catching up with us at various points during the week. Vitor was also very friendly and chatty in the evenings in the rooftop lounge.
The standards of cleanliness and customer service are extremely high.
Anja, the liaison manager I believe, was also very friendly and approachable.
We would definitely recommend this hotel to people of all ages, there were a mixture of ages when we stayed (Aug 3 - 10) we would have happily stayed an extra few nights to be honest, we had such a fantastic time.

We stayed on the sixth floor with a seafront room the views overlooking the Atlantic the harbour and the town of Funchal are nothing less than spectacular.
The room is spacious with a huge bed comfy the air con takes some adjusting to get right which you will need as the island is very humid.
the balcony’s are small but still great to chill and unwind before dinner and to take in the sunrise before breakfast,which is great plenty of choice from fresh fruit,croissants and even local cake to start the day,the fry up option is good just the sausages are not to my taste.
Having read a number of indifferent reviews on here about dinner we found the food excellent always different options nightly and a few theme nights in between, the gala night being our personal favourite. do take a hot plate as some items may have been sitting longer than others but we never had any issues with anything being cold.
At savoy the one thing that makes this hotel stand out is the staff we found the tui team to be better than anywhere we have ever stayed before, we never really engage much with reps and like to do our own thing but they were always polite friendly and very informative and work tirelessly to make everyone’s stay enjoyable,the bar staff are a credit to this hotel happy and always engaging to have a laugh and a joke with the guests and they make requested cocktails too.
The pool is only cold for about five seconds just jump in have a swim then just chill in it meeting and talking to the other guests.
We noticed some guests felt the need to reserve pool loungers,but this really is not needed we found good spots everyday even returning midday from a few walks after breakfast,we had a room close to the works next door we never experienced any dust or disruption I guess it’s the old chestnut it’s only a problem if you want to make it a problem.
I was a little apprehensive about the cashless system but it is fine you can pay through out your holiday and even though we received some one else’s key card one night it was quickly resolved by reception,only gripe I have is I would prefer the tv and print out statement to be in English perhaps something they can look to improve on.
So out and about is a strenuous adventure but one should do these islands are magnificent the trips offered by tui are competitive with the other tour operators on the island and add so much more,but do take the time to go to monte palace and tropical gardens they truly are stunning even out of spring.
And don’t forget to come back down on the whicker sleds 30 euros for a couple 25 if your going solo but well worth the experience and great for any age.
The forum is a great walk and you can relax for lunch down by the lido and have a dip in the sea.
The opposite direction is the city of Funchal do walk down the quaint side streets and grab lunch here while

you watch the world go by some great shops too and we never felt pressured to buy in any of them a welcome change.
Just outside the hotel there is a lane that leads you to a cafe and shop momentus cafe is used by the locals which should tell you every thing do do try the chicken wrap and also any sandwich have it made out of the sweet potato dough it’s delicious.
So all in all I would recommend anybody thinking of visiting the island to choose savoy gardens great location to enjoy everything Madeira has to offer.